50%
Praya Hotel.- 29-31 Praya Central, Capt. O'Flaherty, Proprietor.
I also note an advertisement of a Public Auction by Messrs. Ayres and Company who undertook to sell off the stock-in-trade, fixtures and goodwill of the "well-known House," the Union Tavern, 314 Queen's Road.
Supplementing previous information on the hotels of the Colony (see 29-6-33, 1-7-33 and 3-7-33), it is noted that in June, 1866, before the Hon. Mr. J.C. Whyte, Mr. Cecil Clementi Smith and Mr. F.W. Mitchell (evidently the Licensing Board of the day), application was made for the transfer of the licence of the Hongkong Inn from a Mr. Enix to a Mr. Medina. The applicant stated that he had been second mate of an American brig, and that he had bought the Hongkong Inn at auction for the sum of $725. He had been informed that he would obtain a transfer of the licence if he bought the house. The Magistrates, however, did not permit the transfer.
On the same date, Mr. R. Clarke, the proprietor of the Victoria Hotel, applied that the licence of his house be transferred during his temporary absence from the Colony. The finding of the Court was that they declined to transfer the licence to the applicant, the fact being that he had been in gaol for a year!
Mr. H.J. Carr also applied that the licence for the British Hotel be transferred to himself from the name of his deceased partner. Application granted.
Newspaper comment of those days (1866) was strong and pointed concerning the holders of licences of many of the Hongkong public-houses. It was asserted that the practice was quite common for Inspectors of Police, with their savings, to buy public houses and install their own barmen therein.
In this connexion a case is cited wherein an Inspector of Police, the dread of evil-doers and the admiration of honest men, put a barman into a public-house. Shortly afterwards, on resigning from the Force, he resolved openly to assume the ownership of his "pub," but upon making application to have the licence transferred to his own name, the Magistrates refused the application, not deeming the character of the ex-inspector suitable!
The subject of the hostelries of the Colony, ranging from the lowly public houses to the more pretentious type of hotel, is an ever interesting one, worthy of several chapters in any history of Hongkong. By the kindness of contributors and by means of research among old chronicles, I am able to give extracts from time to time which help to identify old names, explain former associations, and, in a way, visualise the life of the old days of the Colony. Thus we have seen the use of the word "inn" during the Forties (see 8-7-33, in which is noted that Major-General D'Aguilar had to be accommodated in premises intended originally as an inn, the inn-keeper being compensated). How redolent of romance is that! The only regret must be that we have, seemingly, no record of the name of this "house"; also, none of the painted signs that swung to the breeze - surely they had them in those days - have been preserved. The term "hotel" came later into general favour, and even to-day we find it used in the Colony for places which hardly come up to one's ideas of such an establishment. But let us extract such items as we may find buried away among the old records.
Page 240
Page 241